


From the Dawn of Time

by Thewordlover



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thewordlover/pseuds/Thewordlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From creation to the end of Narnia, and even the end of all worlds, the laws, and the Deepest Magics, have existed because of Aslan and his father, the elusive Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Dawn of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wei/gifts).



Before the forest between the worlds, before Narnia and Archenland and Calormen and England, Aslan’s Country was everything and anything. Even larger and more strange than the trees and river by a cliff two suffering English schoolchildren would come upon millennia later had made it seem, the country was trees and rivers, deserts and oceans and strange roads that usually seemed to lead nowhere.  
Incomprehensibly vast, the only inhabitants were those who had not been created. Those who existed, as the human’s Bible would later describe the Israelites’ God as saying, “‘I Am Who I Am’”. The first, the creators. Namely, Aslan and his Father, the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. 

This was, one might say, before the dawn of time. Aslan and his Father, who was more a personification of the wilds than a corporeal being, lived in quiet harmony, based on being and watching. Waiting. They had plans, but patience also, and waited. Things were not quite ready yet. 

It was not until later, when Narnia in particular was created by Aslan, that the Stone Table would be created and carved. Before Narnia’s beginning of time, though, the Deeper Magic was already firmly the law. The-Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, in his omniscience, knew that sacrifice could turn back death. To give one’s life for another is something unique in all of existence. Uniquely noble, uniquely pure. Aslan knew and understood this more truly than any of his and his Father’s creations ever could, especially the White Witch. But that was later. Narnia’s history is unique and important, but the beginning of time for any and all worlds’ possibility was earlier, and all-encompassing. 

Eventually all things were in order, and it was right.

The dawn of time was quietly sudden, like a tree shooting out of damp soil, or a fire whispering to life. The Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea breathed his will, and time began, flowing out of the Emperor and out of Aslan. Suddenly, motion and movement had true meaning. It could be speeded up, slowed down, measured and forgotten and manipulated. Existence proper had begun.

 

It was Aslan who walked first among the trees in the Wood Between the Worlds. It was exactly as it would be for the rest of time- warm, quiet, and sleepy. Aslan began to sing, and the first portal and world was created, whose true name has been forgotten by all but Jadis and Aslan. Later, it would be called for one of its cities. Charn.

Aslan entered the new, still-dark world, and continued to sing. The plants and creatures grew up around him, rich and new. Not all worlds were sung, but many, both before and after Narnia. To give a full account of all the worlds created across the vast chasm of time would require thousands of volumes to give a brief survey. Let it be said, Charn was the first, and the first to go bad. 

But some worlds were not just corrupted, but redeemed. As exhaustively told elsewhere, the lands of Narnia have a particularly intriguing history, not the least of which was its sometimes frequent visitors from the world of Earth. 

When Father Time destroyed the entire world of Narnia, it was an end of one type, but the beginning of another. Those worthy moved on to the true Narnia, which connected to Aslan’s Country. Such is the cycle of time and life and beginnings and endings. 

 

Once, before and outside of time, Aslan and his Father considered all that would one day occur, in all the countries and all the lands across the well of time that was yet to begin. It was only comprehensible because they were who they were. In the category of origins, Aslan’s Country was the alpha and the omega. Where all begin, all would eventually end. In in the between, sinners and saviors and ordinary, yet unique and special, beings would flood each land’s history, have their own independent journeys- origin to death. Yet in that analysis, Aslan could look out hopefully towards that which would be. To exist with just his Father was a certain type of peace, but it wasn’t enough. Life and hope and fellow beings were more.

After the creation of Charn, Aslan returned to his own country and consulted with his father. The Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea regarded his Son kindly, then held out his scepter. Aslan took it gently and read the familiar, worn carving: All that is, from beginning to end, but began with a breath, can but end with one.  
“Consider wisely, my son.”  
“What, Father?” Aslan asked gravely, returning the scepter.  
The Emperor turned his barely visible face, all flashes of wild mane and eyes like the sea, and looked off into the distance.  
“Everything. We are that which Is, and must always remember that beginnings mean endings of a sort. Use your power wisely, as you always have.”

One more thing. If you travel for a week into the mountains of Aslan’s country, you will come upon a hill hidden behind a valley and a forest. The Secret Hill is covered in fire-stones, which are from all the worlds. Aslan collected them in one place, and they are covered in ancient scripts and secret tongues. For all that has been waxed about time, this one place has gathered together some of the greatest wisdom and folly of the ages in one place, and can be read as it accumulated over the ages. The cuts are deep, permanent, and secure. Aslan would sometimes shake his mane slowly at one of the more proud carvings, that he himself had copied and brought here. Once, it had been a eulogy for a giant king in Narnia.  
Though under earth and throneless now I be, Yet, while I lived, all earth was under me.

Those worlds would later be pivotal to saving a certain Narnian prince. What had once been proud boasting, Aslan could turn to his uses. Could turn to good.

The Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea was right. Everything must be considered. Everything across time and space matters, and Aslan and the Emperor know of it all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for your very detailed, thoughtful request. I was intrigued by your ideas, and incorporated some of them into the fic. Especially this quote:
> 
> “What is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? ...what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea?"  
> -The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 
> 
> I hope this origins/across all time, really, fic works for you.


End file.
